Etymology - Anchor

Referring to the broadcast news "anchor," Newsweek, April 21, 2008, offers a useful description of how this word acquired its usage. Here's a snip:

CBC had a problem. It was 1952, and the network had dispatched its stars to the first nationally television Republican National Convention. But CBS wanted to showcase an impressive rookie, Walter Cronkite. A young producer named Don Hewitt, later of "60 Minutes" fame, conjured up the image of a relay race: each journalist would do a segment, then hand off to the next Cronkite would be the "anchor leg." Three weeks later Cronkite was on his way to becoming the "most trusted man in America."